Theatre of war

In the twilight of Monday, 5 June 1944 a vast armada of 277 mine-sweepers, 5,000 assault craft, six battleships, four monitors, 23 cruisers, 104 destroyers and 152 escort vessels embarked from Portsmouth to liberate Europe. Shortly before midnight the aerial assault began. More than 1,200 aircraft carrying three airborne divisions (one British, two American) started taking off. The first to arrive landed 50 feet from the bridge they were to blow up. Two bridges later a new arrival asked how things stood. "Well, so far the exercise is going fine," replied Lt Dennis Fox, "but I can't find any bloody umpires." It's this combination of cold fact and warm personal narrative that makes Beevor's histories so irresistible. Just when you feel you're being swamped with information overload about Operation Overlord - tank numbers, machine-gun positions, weather conditions, aircraft types - he will tell you about Major-General Gerhardt, a miniature General Patton, reprimanding a soldier on Omaha Beach awash with blood, smoke, corpses and burnt-out tanks for dropping a piece of orange peel. The pace never lets up, the action racing between allied attack and German defence, French girls dying in ditches beside their German sweethearts, Hitler issuing orders from Berlin, Eisenhower reading westerns in bed to relax, De Gaulle in Algeria wavering over accepting Churchill's invitation to come to London. Beevor's canvas is vast, but he is always in control, his descriptions so vivid you can feel the earth vibrating beneath you as the offshore gun barrage pounds the enemy defences behind Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword. As for Cameron Stewart's cool, clear voice and astonishing range of accents, they are what finally and magnificently bring this monumental theatre of war to life.

• This article was amended on 6 July 2009. The original had the D-Day force embarking on 5 June 1945. This has been corrected.